Agnes Sligh Turnbull

There is only one thing about which I shall have no regrets when my life ends. I have savored to the full all the small, daily joys. The bright sunshine on the breakfast table; the smell of the air at dusk; the sound of the clock ticking; the light rains that start gently after midnight; the hour when the family come home; Sunday-evening tea before the fire! I have never missed one moment of beauty, not even taken it for granted. Spring, summer, autumn, or winter. I wish I had failed as little in other ways.

You must learn to drink the cup of life as it comes … without stirring it up from the bottom. That’s where the bitter dregs are!

There is still vitality under the winter snow, even though to the casual eye it seems to be dead.

I think we foreshorten our own viewpoint if we consider any state of mind, or society, or government as final. Growth and change! We can’t get away from them.

A country-bred man can always learn to get on with city people, but a town-bred fellah never gets the real hang of the country. You can put city polish on a man, but by golly, it seems you can’t ever rub it off him.

The human soul, by once suffering as much as it is capable of, purchases a strange and terrible immunity to all the rest of life’s sorrows.

By what right has the dog come to be regarded as a noble animal? The more brutal and cruel and unjust you are to him the more your fawning and adoring slave he becomes; whereas, if you shamefully misuse a cat once she will always maintain a dignified reserve toward you afterward-you will never get her full confidence again.

Cat: a pygmy lion who loves mice, hates dogs, and patronizes human beings.

Are cats lazy? Well, more power to them if they are. Which one of us has not entertained the dream of doing just as he likes, when and how he likes, and as much as he likes?

The more I learn about people, the better I like my dog.

Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.

Animals are such agreeable friends – they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.

Don’t tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.

One dog barks at something. And a hundred dogs bark at the sound.

The more I know about people, the more I like dogs. I simply like animals.

It is much easier to show compassion to animals. They are never wicked.

Don’t ever wrestle with a pig. You’ll both get dirty, but the pig will enjoy it.

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

Cats are smarter than dogs. You can not get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.

Just when the caterpillar thought the world was ending, he turned into a butterfly.

Just because an animal is large, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want kindness; however big Tigger seems to be, remember that he wants as much kindness as Roo.